Industrial and Biotechnological Applications of Algae: A Review - Industrial and Biotechnological Applications of Algae: A Review - Open Access Pub

Algae are a class of photosynthetic organisms found in both marine and freshwaters habitats. As these organisms have a short doubling time, they are considered among fastest growing creatures. They have different pathways to fix atmospheric carbon dioxide and to efficiently utilize the nutrients to convert it into biomass. In few years, a focus has been shifted towards these organisms due to their food and fuel production capability. In fuel industry algae biofuels have been emerged as a clean, nature friendly, cost effective solution to other fuels. Algae fuels are categorized into bio-ethanol, biogas, bio-hydrogen, biodiesel and bio-oil. Algae as a food have been explored for different applications as in production of single cell proteins, pigments, bioactive substances, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. The present review has been prepared to throw a light on enormous applications of algae as food and fuel and also to provide some information about different commercially available algae products. DOI10.14302/issn.2638-4469.japb-17-1534 Algae are being used from a long period of time due to their high biomass production rate in different extreme habitats as compared to cereal based crops. Algae are categorized as third generation biofuels due to their many advantages over different agricultural based crops. The concept of using algae for energy production is not new. Till now the cost of production of algae biofuels is very high due to its limited cultivation systems. But with passage of time, new technologies are being developed for cultivation of algae over a large scale all over year, under different climatic zones varying from tropical to moderate climate. Algae have a potential to fix atmospheric carbon rich gases, due to which they act as quenchers of carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides released from different sources 1, 2. About 1 kg of algae biomass is capable to fix approximately 1.8 kg of carbon dioxide. Algae can use wastewater containing high amount of nitrogen and phosphorus for their growth with benefits of providing biofuels and also helping to get rid from excess nitrogen and phosphorus 4, 5, 6. A wide range of metabolites from algae containing various bioactive compounds are yet to be exploited. Haematococcuspluvialis,a freshwater algae is a source for producing commercially available astaxanthin pigment, whereas Chlorella vulgaris as a food supplement and algae Dunaliellaspecies for β-carotene production. Marine biomass could also be used as a feedstock to produce different fuels as bioelectricity by co-firing, bioethanol, biodiesel,